Conceptualization of Rice with Low Glycaemic Index: Perspectives from the Major European Consumers

Rice and cereal consumption has become a concern for consumers due to usually high glycaemic indexes (GI), which is a critical issue for a balanced and healthy diet. Therefore, the development of new products with low GI is an important target of the industry, particularly in countries with high consumption. This study assesses consumers’ perceptions about “rice” and “rice with low GI” and evaluates the effect of consumers’ rice consumption profiles through the application of a free word association technique in a structured self-administered electronic questionnaire with 256 Portuguese consumers (the European market with the highest per capita consumption of rice by far). The frequency of rice consumption was evaluated, and the consumption profile was determined through a hierarchical cluster analysis, with 9% identified as daily consumers. The response words were categorized by the triangulation technique, and the association between the word categories and dimensions, sociodemographic characteristics, and consumption profile were determined. Respondents most frequently associated “rice” with rice dishes, its sensory attributes, and nutrition, highlighting the satisfaction of nutritional and hedonic needs. Consumers revealed positive expectations in relation to the functionality of “rice with low GI”. The consumers’ rice consumption profiles, sex, age, and educational levels influenced their perception towards “rice“ and “rice with low GI”. This study provides important insights for the industry to develop a consumer-oriented, low GI rice product.


Introduction
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the staple food of most of humankind, with a world per capita consumption of about 80.6 kg/year. The European average value of consumption is more modest, at just 6.7 kg/capita/year, registered between 2015 and 2019 [1]. Within this region, Portugal has the highest consumption, with an average of about 16.1 kg/year. Rice plays a relevant role in Portuguese cuisine, being used as a main course, as a side dish, and even as a dessert [2]. It accounts for 5.2% of the total energy intake, higher than its most direct carbohydrate competitors, namely, potato and pasta, which contribute to 4.6% and 3.0%, respectively [3]. In Portugal, there are two main commercial rice types, namely, Carolino, which is a long grain Japonica variety with milled kernels over 6mm in length, a length/width ratio between 2 to 3, and an amylose content below 22% (expressed in dry matter); and Agulha, which is a long grain Indica variety with milled kernels also over 6 mm length, but with a length/width ratio ≥ 3 and an amylose content above 25%, according to the Portuguese legislation DL 157/2017. Carolino rice is produced from different cultivars, Free word association (FWA) is a projective technique used to achieve associative memory and has gaining popularity in food consumption research, as it encourages respondents to project their underlying motivations, beliefs, attitudes, and/or feelings regarding a specific food [30][31][32]. It consists of presenting a series of words (stimuli words or target words) to a respondent, encouraging an immediate response by associating them with the first words that come to mind. Word association tasks are simple and easy to use and offer powerful insights into the concepts being tested [32]. This cognitive task, which involves the conceptualization of the stimulus, allows for the assessment of the knowledge, the degree of familiarity, and interest in relation to the topic under study. The first ideas to come to mind or the most recurrent might be the most relevant, for example, for purchasing decisions [33].
The FWA technique was also used to explore consumers' perceptions concerning wellbeing in a food-related context [27] to investigate default attitudes toward food [34] and to assess the perceived cross-cultural values of consumption in a triadic approach [35]. The typology of consumption values is derived in terms of the product's/service's ability to have an end in and of itself or to serve as a means to a specific end, which includes utilitarian, symbolic, experiential, and aesthetic values [36]. For food consumption, a shorter triadic approach without aesthetic value proved to be interesting [35,37,38]. Within these, the utilitarian values are determined as a function of the food's capacity to reach the final objective due to a specific characteristic of that food; the symbolic values are determined from intangible concepts, such as cultural and ideological, or other concepts related to the belief itself [39]. The achievement of an end is also latent to these values; however, it is not dependent on the physical attributes of the product. Finally, the experiential values are related to sensory stimulation and affective and emotional reactions associated with consumption. Some research has been done on the perceived values of consumption, where foods have been characterized according to their dominant values as well, showing that the relative importance of consumption values is culturally dependent [34,35,38,40,41]. For example, the consumption of rice by Asian consumers is dominated by utilitarian values, while symbolic values predominate for French consumers [35].
The aim of this study is to evaluate how rice with low GI is perceived and understood by Portuguese consumers compared to the more common white rice with high GI values. This is particularly relevant for the food industry, which intends to develop new products or improve existing products to meet consumers' demands.

Participants
Over 250 participants living in the Great Oporto area were recruited considering the following inclusion criteria: (i) consuming rice at least once a month; (ii) above 18 years old, and (iii) willing to participate in the study. Despite being a convenience sample, it focused on a specific target group (rice consumers), and as such it may be considered as a reliable sample, commonly used in qualitative research [42].
The respondents were recruited by a sensory analysis and market research company from the North of Portugal named Sense Test. The company ensures the protection and confidentiality of data through the authorization 2063/2009 of the National Data Protection Commission and following EU Regulation 2016/679, as well as a longstanding internal code of conduct. The recruitment and scheduling of the inquiry were performed following a telephone-based invitation where only general information about the survey was provided.
All participants followed an informed consent procedure before answering the questionnaire.

Data Collection
In order to obtain consumers' intuitive and spontaneous ideas, an FWA approach was applied. Each participant was asked to write the first three words that came to mind when they read the stimulus word "rice" (arroz, in Portuguese) on the screen, showing three blanks reserved for filling in, followed with the same question to the stimulus "rice with low glycaemic index" (arroz com baixo índice glicémico, in Portuguese). At the time of the questionnaire application, each respondent was taken to a quiet room and filled out the questionnaire that was presented on a computer screen. Data collection was done through a structured self-reported electronic questionnaire, using Lime Survey, and further included the evaluation of rice consumption patterns. The frequency of consumption of overall rice and of each different type of rice was asked, using close-ended questions, following a typical food frequency questionnaire [43]: (1) 1 to 3 times per month; (2) once a week; (3) 2 to 4 times a week; (4) 5 to 6 times a week; (5) once a day; and (6) 2 or more times per day. All types of rice in the Portuguese market were included in the questionnaire options, namely, Arborio (Risotto), Agulha, Basmati, Carolino, brown, wild, Jasmine (Thai Jasmin), and parboiled. Although wild rice (Zizania aquatica and Z. palustris) is not the same species as the others (Oryza sativa L.), it was included in the study as both are marketed as rice with no clear distinction between species. Additionally, sociodemographic data were also collected. The questionnaire also included the collection of age, sex, education level, and monthly household income. Data were collected over a two-month period, from February to March 2018.

Data Analysis
Data analysis of the FWA results was initiated with a spell check and correction of all response words. Next, the categorization of the response words was done by three experienced researchers using the triangulation technique [44]. This technique is widely used in content analysis to reduce the subjectivity related to this type of analysis [45]. The researchers, both individually and independently, grouped the words into exclusive categories and then into dimensions that were more comprehensive, considering the semantic and lexical relations according to the Portuguese language dictionary. The following assessment criteria were taken to each response word: (i) did not include words that elicited multiple interpretations in the context of the stimulus word (ambiguous words); (ii) maintained the same form for words that allow plural or singular and female or male; and (iii) did not include words that had no type of connection to the stimulus word, or made no sense; however, when the ambiguous or presumptively out-of-context words were in sounding numbers, they were grouped for later analysis and joint decision-making.
After the individual categorization of the response words by each researcher, a consensus categorization was achieved. This analysis was done in the native Portuguese language and only after was it translated into English using the rules established by Anderson and Brislin [46].
The frequency of each category and dimension was determined by word, counting the number of response words, and summing those in the same category and dimension; and by participant, counting the number of respondents that mentioned those categories or dimensions. The word frequencies were counted without considering if the words were evoked by the same respondent or not [47][48][49]. To avoid losing valuable information about the perception of cognitive associations of smaller groups, all the categories referred by at least 5% of the participants were considered for analysis.
In addition to grouping the words according to their semantic meaning, words were also grouped according to the perceived value into utilitarian, experiential, and symbolic. There are a variety of definitions and conceptualizations of value that depend on both the context of the study and the methodology and measurement techniques, as well as the theoretical background of the study (such as economic theory and cognitive psychology or consumer behaviour psychology) [40,[50][51][52][53]. This has followed the classification consolidated by Lanseng [36] resulting from the analysis of the relevant literature that reflects on this topic.
To draw a rice consumption profile, a hierarchical cluster analysis was applied over the consumption frequency data for the different rice types using the Ward method for agglomeration and the square Euclidean distance as the similarity measure. The nonpara-metric Kruskal-Wallis test followed by pairwise comparison was also used to compare the frequency of consumption by type of rice between clusters.
A chi-square test of independence was used to evaluate if there is a significant relationship between FWA dimensions, rice consumption profile, and the sociodemographic variables (age group, sex, and education level), following a 95% confidence level. A chisquare test per cell was used to identify the source of the global chi-square variation through the adjusted standardized value [54][55][56]. To compare the consumption values associated with each stimulus word, the same analysis procedure was followed.

Characterization of Participants
The questionnaire was applied to 256 Portuguese respondents aged between 18 and 73 years. Table 1 shows the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants in terms of age, sex, education level, and monthly household income. 3.2. Conceptualization of the "Rice" and "Rice with Low Glycaemic Index" Stimuli A total of 1498 different terms was generated after consumers were invited to write the first three words that came to mind when thinking about "rice" and "rice with low GI". Figure 1 shows the frequency of the 20 most evoked words in the FWA task for the stimulus (a) "rice", and (b) "rice with low GI". While 'white' and 'tasty' were the most frequent words for the "rice" stimulus, they were 'brown rice' and 'healthy' for the "rice with low GI" stimulus ( Figure 1).
The response words were grouped into 18 categories and 10 dimensions. Figure 2 presents the frequency of respondents according to each dimension for the "rice" stimulus, and Table 2 shows the frequencies of words and respondents according to each category with examples of the elicited words. The category 'distribution and price' (e.g., words: price, hypermarket, cheap, affordable, packaging, brand) was mentioned below the established cut-off point, and therefore was not considered for further analysis.    More than half of the respondents (64.1%) mentioned the 'sensory' dimension, corresponding to 34.2% of words, in which the main components of the rice quality assessment were elicited, related to shape, colour, integrity, results, cooking, and grain processing. 'Appearance' (16.3% of words) was the largest category of the "rice" stimulus, and the main sensory attribute cited far more often than the other attributes such as 'flavour' (9.8% of words) and 'texture' (4.2% of words).
The second most expressive dimension was 'cooking and consumption' with 24.3% of words and 46.1% of respondents, which refers to methods of preparing and ways of consuming rice. This dimension was comprised by 'specific foods' (shellfish, tuna, beans, tomato, bacon, chicken, duck, etc.) that are commonly used as ingredients in culinary preparation (8.0% of words), 'rice side dish' (7.6% of words), and 'rice main course' (5.8% of words), as well as 'culinary practices' (2.9% of words). In the category 'culinary practices', some cooking methods were evoked, such as 'braise' and 'estrugido', which are common ways of cooking rice. 'Estrugido' (Portuguese word) is a specific term for braising rice, which is frying garlic and onion in olive oil (may include other condiments) and gaining colour without burning, where other ingredients of the dish to be cooked are later added.
The 'nutrition' dimension contained the 'staple/sustenance' and 'nutritional aspects' categories, revealing the functional dimension of rice. Due to the importance of rice in the Portuguese eating habits, associations with the basic nutritional characteristics ('staple/sustenance' category) were already expected. In this category, words such as 'basic', 'essential', 'food', 'eating', 'to eat', and 'staple' were mentioned. The 'types of rice' dimension was mentioned by 19.5% of respondents who mentioned various types of rice such as Basmati, Carolino, Agulha, Risotto, brown, parboiled, wild, and Jasmine. It is noted that consumers will freely describe as 'types of rice' a mix of actual names of varieties, commercial names, and forms of cooking. For instance, risotto is an Italian way of cooking rice, not a variety or type of rice. Actually, Portuguese restaurants have been known to cook risottos using Carolino rice; there is nothing wrong with that because Portuguese consumers do not actually appreciate the al dente texture that would require varieties like Arborio or Carnaroli to be used. This mix-and-match of names is what consumers read in the packages that they buy, and thus these loose designations were maintained in the text.
The 'geography and culture' dimension brought together names of countries and terms related to specific culture and habits. 'Agriculture', 'convenience', 'health', and 'family' were the last dimensions associated with rice. 'Convenience' was positively referred to, associating words such as 'easy', 'fast', 'practical', and 'versatile'. The versatility and practicality are related to the wide culinary applicability of rice, as well as the existing varieties.
The "rice with low GI" stimulus gave rise to 19 categories; of these, the following ones were not considered due the low reference frequencies (cut-off point: minimum 5% of respondents): 'other types of rice' (Agulha, Carolino, Jasmine), 'appearance', and 'texture', decreasing to a total of 16 categories. These categories were grouped into nine dimensions presented in Figure 3. Table 3 shows the frequency of words and respondents according to each category with examples of the elicited words.  The most referred dimension was 'types of rice' (19.4% of words and 41.0% of respondents). The 'nutrition' dimension (17.0% of words and 40.6% of respondents) was composed of 'nutritional aspects', where the terms related to the nutritional characterization of the stimulus and main nutrients of rice were grouped, while the category 'diet patterns' consisted of terms related to the usual food intake and terms relating to food restriction or reduction. This dimension also included the 'low GI disconnects' category, which gathered incoherent nutritional aspects in the context of this stimulus, such as 'gluten free', 'more vitamins', 'with more vitamins', and 'more phosphorus'. There was also the association of this stimulus to 'unsalted' and 'non-fat', where about 11.7% of respondents made this kind of association.
The 'health' dimension (20.5% of words and 39.8% of respondents) was composed of the categories 'physiological' and 'health benefits'. The 'physiological' category grouped terms related to the organic functions or vital processes of the human organism. The 'health benefits' category includes terms associated with achievements driven by healthy eating and some specifically by consumption of low GI foods.
The last dimensions were 'supply chain', which cited some rice products (rice drink, tufted rice, rice flour, instant rice, dehydrated rice), and 'innovation', which made perfect sense for this concept, since the stimulus incited something new for the respondents. These terms allude to innovation and rice products that can be clues to the intended low GI products. These least frequent dimensions ('supply chain', 'innovation') also referred to the way of accessing "rice with a low glycaemic index".

Consumption Values for "Rice" and "Rice with Low Glycaemic Index" Stimuli
When addressing the consumption values associated with each of the elicited words, in accordance with the stimuli concepts "rice" and "rice with low glycaemic index", clear differences emerged, both based on the frequencies of words and participants. These results are shown in Figure 4. The response words evoked by the respondents from the "rice" stimulus were mostly of an experiential nature (46%), followed by utilitarian (38%), and finally the symbolic values, with 16% of respondents. The most evoked dimension (sensory) carried experiential value, but most dimensions followed predominantly utilitarian values.
In the association task with "rice with low GI", most response words represented utilitarian consumption values (70% of respondents), demonstrating the functionality of rice with low GI. There were 24% of respondents who expressed words with experiential values. These words were grouped in the 'attitudes and emotions' and 'sensory' dimensions. Symbolic values were the least mentioned with only 6% of respondents.
Through the chi-square test, it was verified that there were significantly more associations of experiential and symbolic values to the stimulus "rice", while for the stimulus "rice with low GI", the respondents made significantly more utilitarian associations.

Rice Consumption Profiles
To better understand the respondents' rice consumption profiles, a hierarchical cluster analysis was performed based on the consumption frequency of each type of rice. Four clusters were obtained and labelled as follows (Table 4): • Specialities Cluster-consumers which stood out for their specialty rice types (Basmati, Jasmine, Risotto, brown, parboiled) consumption and with the lowest frequency of rice consumption in general (overall rice consumption: 3.6 times/week); • Local Cluster-most frequent consumers of Carolino rice (a Portuguese rice type) and Agulha rice (the most consumed rice type), and those who consume fewer specialty rice types (overall rice consumption: 4.2 times/week); • Daily Cluster-group with highest weekly consumption for all types of rice, depicting a daily consumption of rice (overall rice consumption: 6.8 times/week); • Agulha Cluster-most frequent consumers of Agulha rice (overall rice consumption: 4.5 times/week). Table 4. Self-reported frequency of consumption of different types of rice (meals/week) by consumption profile.

Types of Rice Overall(n = 256) Specialities (n = 58) Local (n = 108) Daily (n = 24) Agulha (n = 66)
Rice  Table 5 shows the relationship between the rice consumption profiles (four clusters) and the respondents' sociodemographic characterization variables (age group, sex, education level, and monthly household income). There were significantly more male respondents in the Local cluster (consumption of the most common rice types and lower consumption of specialities) than female, while for the Specialities and Daily clusters, the opposite was verified. There were significantly more respondents with higher education in the Specialities cluster, and more respondents without higher education in the Local cluster.

Evaluation of the Relationship between the Free Word Association Categories, Dimensions, and Values, the Rice Consumption Profiles, and the Sociodemographic Variables
To perceive the relationships between variables emerging from free association (categories, dimensions, and values), consumption profile, and sociodemographic variables (age group, sex, educational level, and monthly household income), the chi-square independence test was performed for both stimuli with a 0.05 significance level. Table 6 presents the results of the associations considering the rice stimulus. Results showed that male respondents made significantly more associations to the 'specific foods' (which are normally ingredients for the preparation of rice dishes or to complement the rice meal) and 'geography and culture', while female respondents mentioned significantly more 'types of rice', 'sensory', and 'family'. The oldest respondents made significantly more associations to 'nutrition', 'positive feelings and emotions', 'agriculture', 'convenience', and 'health', and the younger, in turn, made significantly more associations with 'appearance'. The middle age group associated more positively with 'specific foods'.

"Rice" Stimulus
Respondents with higher education seemed much more often to consider the 'rice as side dish' and 'type of rice' categories in their associations than individuals without higher education. Those without higher education more frequently associated the "rice" stimulus to 'flavour', 'positive feelings and emotions', 'convenience', and 'health'.
As for the rice consumption profile, it was found that the Specialities cluster mentioned significantly more 'types of rice' and 'agriculture'. The high frequency rice consumption cluster made significantly more associations to the 'convenience' category. The cluster with the highest Agulha rice consumption was the one that made most mention of the words related to mood ('positive feelings and emotions'), which were significantly less mentioned by the Local cluster.
The female respondents and Agulha clusters mentioned significantly more response words of experiential value. Symbolic values, which were the least associated with the concept (16%, Figure 4), were significantly more often mentioned by the Specialities cluster. Table 6. Frequency (%) of elicited words according to dimensions, categories, and values in the free word association task using the "rice" stimulus according to sex, age group, education level, and rice consumption profile.   Effect of the chi-square per cell. (+) or (−) indicate that the observed value is higher or lower than the expected theoretical value: * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001.

"Rice with Low Glycaemic Index" Stimulus
The associations considering the "rice with low GI" stimulus are presented in Table 7. 'Types of rice' was mentioned significantly more by female and higher education respondents. In the nutritional dimension, the youngest cited more terms related to the 'nutritional aspect'. 'Low GI disconnects' was evoked significantly more by respondents without higher education. 'Cooking and consumption' was evoked significantly more by the middle-aged group ([35; 55[) and by respondents without higher education. In the dimension 'attitudes and emotions', male respondents were the ones who most evoked 'negative feelings and emotions', while 'positive attitudes' was significantly more often mentioned by the older ones. Older respondents also evoked significantly fewer sensory terms and evoked significantly more terms from the 'naturalness' dimension. The terms related to 'innovation' were significantly more often mentioned by male, younger, and higher education individuals.
Rice dishes were mentioned more by Local consumers, while the Specialities consumers mentioned significantly more 'types of rice' and significantly less 'health' and 'sensory' dimensions.
For consumption values, significant differences were found between Specialities and Local consumers. It was found that the Specialities consumers mentioned significantly more response words with utilitarian values, while the Local cluster mentioned significantly more experiential values. Table 7. Frequency (%) of elicited words according to dimensions, categories, and consumption values in the free word association task using the "rice with low glycaemic index" stimulus according to sex, age group, education level, and rice consumption profile. Effect of the chi-square per cell. (+) or (-) indicate that the observed value is higher or lower, respectively, than the expected theoretical value: * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001.

Discussion
The findings of this research emphasize the long experience of Portuguese consumers in the context of rice in their meals. In the FWA task, all respondents filled in the three reserved spaces for the "rice" stimulus. For the "rice with low GI" stimulus, 10% of the respondents left at least one blank, and the level of response divergence was greater, resulting in a greater number of different words, indicating that our respondents were less familiar with this concept, as the familiarity of the participants with the stimulus determines how they will process information to answer questions [57,58].
For the "rice" stimulus, the most frequent words evoked by our participants were 'white', 'taste', and 'loose'. This revels that the 'sensory' dimension represents the main rice consumer association, as the higher the frequency of elicitations the greater the salience of the association or concept in the consumers' minds [59]. Additionally, only positive hedonic words, such as 'appetizing', 'favourite', 'good', 'I love it', 'pleasant', and 'wonderful', were evoked by our participants. Not surprisingly, this reinforces that the Portuguese consumer focuses on sensorial attributes of the product, which is in tune with findings that sensory appeal is one of the main determinants of food choice by Portuguese consumers [26]. 'Appearance' was by far the largest category of the "rice" stimulus and the main sensory attribute, followed by 'flavour' and 'texture'. This means that Portuguese consumers can rely on extrinsic rice attributes (e.g., visual appearance) to assess intrinsic product attributes (e.g., texture). These findings reveal similarities between Portuguese and Asian consumers who describe a "good rice" based on the appearance attribute [35], and contrast with other consumers, namely European consumers [60], for whom the texture is a decisive attribute of quality rice [61][62][63]. This could be explained by the fact that Asian and Portuguese consumers have a vast experience in eating and cooking, enabling them to use different intrinsic and extrinsic cues when evaluating the quality of rice [64]. This similarity of behaviours of one European country and Asia is likely the result of the fusion of experiences brought about by the maritime expansion of Portugal towards South and Eastern Asia for over 500 years from the 15th century.
In fact, the second most frequent dimension for the "rice" stimulus was 'cooking and consumption', a dimension that aggregates categories related to the methods of preparation and ways of consuming rice. This salience could be explained by the fact that rice is part of the Portuguese cuisine, as it was considered by our participants as an everyday food (a 'staple' food) and an ingredient served as side dish (e.g., 'plain rice', 'bean rice', 'cabbage rice', 'carrot rice', 'Malandro rice', 'spring rice', 'tomato rice') or as a main course (e.g., 'Cabidela rice', 'chicken rice', 'codfish rice', 'duck rice', 'seafood rice', 'octopus rice', 'sweet rice'-dessert, 'Valencian rice'). Additionally, participants also spontaneously evoked words related to the methods of preparing and consuming rice (e.g., 'bake', 'braise', 'estrugido' (with pre-stir fried onions in olive oil), 'grill', 'hot'), revealing familiarity with these culinary practices. Some of our participants seemed to be so familiar with rice's culinary practices, that they perceived this food as 'easy', 'fast', 'practical', 'variety', and 'versatile' to cook ('convenience' dimension).
Although our participants evoked some words such as 'carbohydrates' and 'calories' (grouped in the category 'nutritional aspects'), presumably reflecting some concern about its caloric content, other words were also found, evoking positive associations with rice's nutritional properties, such as 'balanced', 'good nutrition', and 'nutritious'. This shows that rice consumption is also positively related with a healthy diet, in accordance with French, Spanish, Greek, and Dutch consumers [65], as well as US consumers [66][67][68].
Even though the hedonic value dominates for the "rice" stimulus, as our participants appreciated the sensory properties of rice as it offers pleasure and evokes feelings of pleasure (experiential view) [39], the value of rice was also determined by how well it performs, namely, considering its use as a side dish or main dish, or as a source of nutritional properties or as a means to prepare a conventional meal. As a result, for our participants, the two dimensions of rice's benefits, hedonic and utilitarian, are not mutually exclusive [69], and do not compete with each other [70], thus promoting rice consumption.
Additionally, words carrying cultural or personal meaning, such as 'childhood', 'family', 'grandmother', and 'party' were also referred to by our participants. These words have already been reported in studies of traditional food conceptualization [48,71], and this symbolic view of consumption has been closely associated with ethnic and traditional food consumption [48,72,73], reinforcing the cultural/traditional identity associated with rice consumption in Portugal. By contrary, French consumers consider rice as a food from other cultures [35], emphasizing the European food cultural heterogeneity despite the geographical proximity between countries [48,74].
Considering the "rice with low GI", consumers made significantly more associations with utilitarian values and significantly less with experiential and symbolic values. In fact, for this stimulus, the most frequent words mentioned by our consumers were 'brown rice', 'healthy/health', and 'plain rice', resulting in three dimensions related to the rice's functional attributes: 'types of rice', 'health', and 'cooking and consumption'. One may infer that eating "rice with low GI" promotes health benefits (e.g., 'cleanse organism', 'slimming', 'good for health', 'good disposition') due to their nutritional properties, as "rice with low GI" contains 'proteins', 'low sugar', 'low carbohydrates', or 'fibre'. For our participants, these functional properties are essentially found in 'brown', 'Basmati', or 'parboiled' rice, corresponding to the rice types with the lowest GI [17,19]. Nevertheless, they also evoked 'plain rice' (a popular side dish usually made with white rice cooked only with water and salt and some other condiments), which may demonstrate a health concern but also a lack of knowledge because they believe that simple-cooking rice may be healthier. Additionally, in order to lose weight or for health and wellbeing reasons, participants evoked words that are related to the moderation and restriction of food consumption (e.g., 'balanced regime', 'eat small amounts', 'few', 'moderation').
Although our participants evaluated "rice with low GI" in a favourable way, in the sense that it was considered as 'recommendable', 'appropriate', 'special', and 'suitable', some also evoked negative feelings and emotions, such as 'misinformation', 'uncertainty', and 'unfamiliarity', and negative sensory terms, such as 'bitter', 'little taste', 'insipid', 'less appealing', 'no-taste', 'tasteless', and 'unpleasant'. This could be a barrier to promoting consumption of "rice with low GI", as consumers hardly compromise taste for health [72]. Similar results were obtained for functional foods, as their health/wellbeing benefits acceptance has become more conditional, particularly with respect to bad taste [75][76][77]. In the same way, "rice with low GI" may evoke contradicting perceptions, as this product is perceived to be innovative ('development experiment', 'innovation') or natural ('additive-free', 'natural', 'organic', 'unprocessed'). Previous studies have shown that a product perceived to be natural is thought to be minimally processed and/or produced by traditional methods, and it also seems that naturalness is associated with desirable sensory attributes [78].
Regarding the rice consumption profile, it was found that the most frequent rice consumers (Daily cluster) were those who reported consuming all types of rice available on the market significantly more often, demonstrating that the variety of types of rice allows or facilitates such daily consumption. This contrasts with the Specialities cluster, which are the respondents with the lowest frequency of rice consumption. This cluster seems to be more selective in the type of rice, choosing the types considered exotic, which are usually more expensive. Moreover, there were significantly more respondents with higher education (28.1%) and with higher income (30.7%) in the Specialities cluster, thus confirming that the prices of this type of rice are important in the purchase decision. The importance of this factor is reinforced by the fact that Daily consumers have significantly fewer respondents with the highest income, showing in a way that rice (in general) is an affordable food. This same consumer cluster associated symbolic values to "rice" significantly more, demonstrating a certain projection of the lifestyle and cultures, and this was shown by words such as 'brand', 'family', 'exotic', 'party', 'modernity', and 'sushi', which formed this value group.
In the "rice" stimulus, the older respondents did significantly fewer associations to the 'types of rice' than the younger groups. This may be the result of the presence of new types of rice in the national market to which younger people are more familiar or perhaps more open to new experiences. On the other hand, for "rice with low GI", the older age group and respondents without higher education evoked significantly more terms related to 'low GI disconnects'. This is aligned with the findings that reveal that the level of education has significant effects on nutritional knowledge [79,80] and on healthy food perception [81].
The younger respondents referred significantly more to 'innovation'; however, it was the older ones who showed greater interest, referring significantly more to 'positive attitudes'. These positive associations such as 'appropriate', 'suitable', 'safe', 'ideal', and 'recommendable' showed that interest in the potential product is more significant for the older age group. These findings contrast with results from the United Kingdom and France, where it was found that the perception of rice differs between age groups, where rice is seen as a new food by older consumers and as a staple food by young ones [82]. The older respondents also evoked significantly more terms related to 'naturalness' and 'attitudes and emotions', which have a stronger experiential dimension. However, as the affective dimension is something acquired (experiential), the association of these categories to a hypothetical low GI product (stimulus) highlights the importance of these dimensions in food choice, especially in this age group, corroborating studies that predict a greater focus on affective and emotional issues in older consumers [81,83].
The "rice dishes" dimensions from the "rice with low GI" stimulus were significantly more often mentioned by Local consumers, which is justified by the fact that the mentioned dishes were mostly typical Portuguese dishes made with the Carolino rice type, the locally produced one. In this cluster there were significantly more male respondents (55.7%), while in the Specialities cluster there were significantly more female respondents (25.7%), confirming that males are less prone to new experiences and more neophobic than female consumers [84,85]. This aversion to the unknown, or low propensity for new foods shown by male respondents, can also be reinforced by the 'negative feelings and emotions' category of the stimulus "rice with low GI", where they mentioned significantly more words from this group. The word "rice" evoked more associations with experiential values and the 'sensory' dimension for female respondents. This result suggests that women in relation to men give more importance to hedonic consumption, as found in other studies [86][87][88].

Conclusions
The FWA task showed differences between "rice" and "rice with low GI", exploring the constructs that can shape attitudes and preferences in relation to such concepts and capturing the consumers' perceptions and expectations in relation to the product concept.
For Portuguese consumers, rice is an everyday food and a major ingredient served as a side dish or as a main course, as they appreciate their sensory properties, offering pleasure and evoking feelings of pleasure. On the other hand, the utilitarian value dominates the consumption values of the "rice with low GI". "Rice with low GI" incites something new and positive for health, as normally, health benefits are connected to uncertainties regarding future health status. However, to accept this product innovation, consumers must perceive and be persuaded that health and nutritional benefits compensate for negative sensorial properties.
The relationship between values, dimensions, and categories with socio-demographic characteristics and consumption profiles allowed us to explore differences among consumers, clearly identifying four clusters of consumers: Specialities, Local, Daily, and Agulha. For these groups, the differences in the rice consumption patterns were clearly associated with different attitudes and perceptions towards "rice" and "rice with low GI".
The results provide general information for the development of a consumer-oriented low GI rice product. However, future research may be oriented towards a more specific assessment of the intrinsic and extrinsic expectations of consumers in relation to this type of product.